HK youth deceived by West

By Yang Sheng in Beijing and Chen Qingqing in Hong Kong Source:Global Times Published: 2019/8/19 23:23:40 Last Updated: 2019/8/20 10:38:26

‘I go to Yale, you go to jail’ mocks agitator followers


A Hong Kong resident (center) holds the widely circulated cartoon featuring a Hong Kong police officer's back as he stands alone against protesters. Photo: Yang Sheng/GT



 In the past two months, the radical protesters in Hong Kong, who consist of many young people and students who are infatuated with the West, have continuously showed their extremism through cyber bullying and real violence by provoking other residents of the city and people from the mainland, which prompted local experts and even many young students who disagree with them to speak out.

"I go to Yale, you go to jail" is a comment spreading in Chinese social media to mock young radical protesters in Hong Kong willing to be used by radical and foreign forces. The mockery was in reference to Nathan Law Kwun-chung, a main agitator behind the Hong Kong riots, who has left Hong Kong to study at Yale University, while calling on many of his peers to remain on the streets.

Not only Law, but other masterminds, including opposition politicians Martin Lee Chu-ming and Claudia Mo Man-ching, have refused to send their own children to stand with protesters and conduct unlawful activities. Some of their children have been living overseas or studying at universities in Western countries.

Since June 9, Hong Kong police have arrested 748 protesters for attacking police and many of them are young people.

This is truly sad because many ignorant and naïve young students are obviously being used by agitators and some US politicians who are trying to put pressure on China during the China-US trade negotiations, said Cheung Yuen Sum, a Hong Kong commentator and convener of Hong Kong-based think tank IDEA4HK. "More sadly, they don't admit or realize that they are being used. They are sick."

Patriotic Hong Kong residents pose for photos with the Chinese national flag at Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor on early Sunday morning. The banner reads "Opposing foreign forces' interference in Hong Kong affair! Traitors get out of China!"Photo: Chen Qingqing/GT



Unbelievable ignorance 

Law said on his Facebook page that he is just changing place to continue the "fight for Hong Kong." Agitators like him going to Western countries like the US and the UK did not stop inciting trouble but continued to ask politicians of these countries to voice support for them and pressure China.

On Friday, a rally organized by pro-West organizations asking for help from the US and the UK was held at Chater Garden in Hong Kong. Some of the participants went too far to ask the UK to "re-exercise the Treaty of Nanking and Treaty of Tientsin" which were two unjust treaties that the Qing Dynasty signed with the British Empire after the Opium War that allowed Britain to colonize Hong Kong and start selling opium products to China. 

In 2014, during the Occupy Central movement, Tang Chi-tak and Hui Sin-tung, two student representatives from Hong Kong, testified to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament, urging their former colonial master to "re-exercise the Treaty of Nanking and Treaty of Tientsin."

Experts said this is hopelessly ignorant, and that these young people didn't read the treaties at all before they made such remarks. They also have no idea about how powerful China is now.

Victor Chan, 33, vice chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Young Commentators, said that many of the Hong Kong young people have no idea what happened in the Middle East and Africa as many countries have already paid the price of Western forces aiding local "democratic movement." 

"Have they forgotten what happened in Libya and Syria after the Arab Spring?" Foreign intervention will bring chaos and death, and those young people's ideas are unrealistic and dangerous, Chan noted.

Hijacking others

It's very hard to change the mentality of young Hong Kong people today, as society is divided, and many young people are actively involved in protests.  

However, those young protesters are also divided into three groups: a group of core radical protesters who piloted demonstrations; a group of fervent protesters as "dare-to-die troops"; and a group of young students who have been deceived, said Chan Cheuk-hay, president of the HKCT Institute of Higher Education.  

For the third group, their views could be easily influenced. "The majority is those young students whose opinions could easily change. The recent attack on a mainland passenger and a reporter at the Hong Kong airport made them reflect on recent protests," he said. 

Many young people and students from top universities, like the University of Hong Kong  and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, disagree with radical protesters or anti-mainland activists, but they prefer to keep a low profile because they are afraid of being bullied by radical classmates. 

Some of those who agreed to be interviewed by Global Times reporters requested anonymity. Michael Wong, 22, from Hong Kong Baptist University told the Global Times that "they [radical students] said they are fighting for democracy and human rights, but they call everyone who disagrees with them and defends the government enemies, and treat them with violence and insults. Is this the democracy they are fighting for?"

Posted in: POLITICS,HK/MACAO/TAIWAN,FOCUS NEWS

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